CONF: International Conference on Foraging Behavior: Nervous Systems to Ecosystems, July 22 - 24, 1998 in Santa Cruz, CA

“觅食”是寻找、攻击和加工食物和其他资源的过程。科学家们从几个方面研究觅食行为：一些研究者研究资源寻求行为的心理和神经机制；其他人研究资源获取的结构和生理学（例如，口腔垫和消化过程）；还有一些人关注于觅食如何影响生态系统的结构。这种多样性意味着在一个层面工作的调查人员很少有机会与在另一个层面工作的调查人员互动。这个项目支持了一个关于觅食行为的国际会议，该会议将把许多这些研究人员聚集在一起。这次会议在加州大学圣克鲁斯分校举行，将包括18个受邀的代表一系列方法的演讲，以及大约80个贡献的演讲。会议旨在促进觅食行为的改进和更好的综合观点。这在实践和概念上都很重要。例如，许多科学家现在认为，对大脑和神经系统的更深入了解将是未来十年的一个关键挑战：对动物觅食行为的分析可以为神经过程所要解决的认知问题类型提供线索。在生物组织的另一个层面上，许多关键的生态关系实际上是觅食关系，因此，对觅食行为的了解的提高可以改善自然生态系统的使用和管理决策。

Stephens 9802697 "Foraging" is the process of searching for, attacking, and processing food and other resources. Scientists study foraging in several ways: some investigators address the psychological and neural apparatus of resource-seeking behavior; others study the structures and physiology of resource acquisition (for example, mouth pads and digestive processes); still others focus on how foraging influences the structure of ecosystems. This diversity has meant that investigators working at one level, seldom have opportunities to interact with those working at another. This project supports an international conference on foraging behavior that will bring many of these investigators together. The conference, at the University of California at Santa Cruz, will consist of 18 invited presentations selected to represent an array of approaches, and approximately 80 contributed presentations. The conference seeks to promote an improved and better integrated view of foraging behavior. This is both practically and conceptually important. For example, many scientists now feel that a deeper understanding of the brain and nervous system will be a key challenge for the next decade: analysis of animal foraging behavior can provide clues to the types of cognitive problems that neural processes were built to solve. At a different level of biological organization, many critical ecological relationships are, in fact, feeding relationships, and so an improved knowledge of foraging behavior can improve the decisions in the use and management of natural ecosystems.